


Aubade

by Taliax



Series: 100 Eternal Moments [2]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Platonic Relationships, Some Canon, some AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-20
Updated: 2014-09-18
Packaged: 2018-02-28 00:52:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 10,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2712947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taliax/pseuds/Taliax
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Between 358 setting suns, a friendship was forged.  Platonic Roxas/Xion for set 3 of Raberba girl's "Other Kinds of Love" challenge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Thirteen

**Author's Note:**

> So, just realized it’s RokuShi Day. I didn’t plan on doing this set until I did Set 2, and I wasn’tsure I was going to do it at all, but I want to kick my muse back into gear and the easiest way for me to do that is with challenges.
> 
> The name for this set comes from Roxas’s and Xion’s keyblade with Mystery Gear equipped.

“I don’t get it.”

“Yeah, that’s stupid.”

Axel sighed.  “Don’t complain to me; I didn’t name the Organization.”

Roxas and Xion lay back against Axel’s bed and pouted.  “There are _fourteen_ of us,” Roxas said for what had to have been the gazillionth time.

“I already told you, it was Organization XIII before either of you joined.  Since before _I_ joined, actually.”  Axel reclined against his headboard.  It _was_ an interesting question, but he wasn’t too curious.  It was probably just Xemnas’s eccentricity.  Like his obsession with the letter X.

“It’s still stupid,” Roxas insisted.

“And I still don’t get it.  But I guess you’re just lucky, Roxas,” Xion said, smiling at him.  “Number XIII in Organization XIII.”

Roxas shrugged.  “It’s okay, I guess.”

Axel looked away and frowned.  The two young Nobodies were still too naïve to know that thirteen was the most unlucky number.


	2. Colors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Axel has to help his two young children compromise on how to decorate their room.

“I want _this_ color,” Xion decided, waving a bright purple paint swatch.  “Isn’t it pretty, Daddy?”

Axel chuckled.  “Sure.”  The color actually make his eyes want to bleed, but he wasn’t about to tell her that.  Roxas did the job for him, anyway.

“Purple’s a stupid color.  This color’s way better.”  Roxas shoved a bright, flaming red swatch towards Axel’s face, which he plucked from the seven-year-old’s fingers.

“I dunno.”  Axel put the burning red half way on top of the eye-stabbing purple.  The combination was enough to actually make his eyes water, regardless of how much he liked red.  “Maybe we’ll just have to paint two walls one color and two walls the other color.”

“No!”  Roxas and Xion both exclaimed.

“Then you guys better agree on one color,” Axel told them.

The twins glared at each other and crossed their arms.  “I don’t want to sleep with her,” Roxas said.

“I want my own room.  I’ll paint it Periwinkle Party” –the name of the awful paint color—“and hang all my pony posters on all the walls and Roxas’s dragons won’t breathe fire all over them.”

“And _I’ll_ have my own room where my dragons can breathe all the fire they want.  And I’d drink chocolate milk in bed.”

Axel ruffled his son’s hair in amusement.  “That’s not quite how it works, Rox.  But it doesn’t matter, because you two can’t have your own rooms.”

Xion sighed.  “I know.  Our house isn’t big enough.”

It wasn’t even a house, technically.  The three of them were sitting on the floor of one of the two bedrooms in their apartment in Twilight Town.  With two kids and a job that barely paid above minimum wage, it was a miracle Axel could even afford their humble home.

But it was home.  No matter what garish color Roxas and Xion ended up deciding to paint their room.

“You wouldn’t want to sleep by yourself, anyway,” Axel said.  In fact, the kids ended up in his bed more nights than they slept in their own, so he didn’t see why picking a color was such a big issue.  “You two like each other too much.”

Xion and Roxas exchanged a sheepish glance.  “…She’s my sister.  I have to like her,” Roxas said.

“Well I’d like you even if I didn’t have to,” Xion said, smiling a little.

“…Yeah,” Roxas agreed and went back to looking at paint swatches, throwing all the ones he didn’t like into a pile behind him.

“This one’s not so bad.”  A corner of a cool blue swatch stuck out at the edge of their unsorted pile, which Xion dug out and placed on top.  Roxas picked it up thoughtfully.

“Blue’s a boy color,” he said in approval.

“Guess that settles it, then.”  Axel smiled, and Roxas handed him the color.  “Huh…”  Holding it up, he realized it matched the color of his children’s eyes exactly.  That same deep, clear color, a shade lighter and bluer than the indigo-violet of their mother’s.

“What is it, Daddy?”  Xion asked.

“We picked the color,” Roxas said, like he expected Axel to go back and tell them they couldn’t have it.

“Yeah.  It’s a good color.”  Axel ruffled the twins’ hair and stood up, ignoring the rainbow mess of colored paper squares littered across the carpet.  “C’mon, let’s go back to the paint store.”

“Yay!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m redoing my room, and my sister keeps trying to make me paint it the colors she wants, so that’s where I got my inspiration from. xP
> 
> The workers at the paint store must’ve had a cow when the three of them came in and picked out all the paint swatches. XD I can just see Roxas and Xion grabbing every color and being all like “SHINY!” XD XD


	3. Vivid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What counts as real is subjective.

I still don’t get what it means to be a Nobody.  Probably because I don’t remember being a Somebody in the first place.  What’s the difference, anyway?  Hearts?  What are they?  Why do I need one?

“Hi, Roxas.”  Xion’s voice and smile distract me.

“Hey.”  I grin back.

“That’s better,” she says.

“Huh?”

“I was worried for a second.  You looked like you were trying to have a staring contest with the sun.”

“Oh… I was just thinking.”  I hand her a still-cold ice cream bar, and she sits down.

“Axel says that can make you have the Blinded status condition forever.  Staring at the sun I mean, not thinking.”  She laughs.  “So what were you thinking about?”

I sigh, and my warm puff of breath melts the tip of my ice cream.  “Life, I guess.  I just have so many questions…”

Her black eyebrows come together.  “Me too.”

We both stay silent for a while, not even eating our ice cream.  Sure, we have questions, but none we can help each other answer.  Not like we haven’t tried.

“Everything seems so real,” Xion finally whispers.

“Huh?”

She stares off at the red horizon.  “The sunset.  Sitting here.  Eating ice cream.”  Taking a bite, she smiles slightly before finishing, “And you.”

“Me?”  I blink.  The sun left those bright spots in my eyes.

“Especially you.”  She turns towards me with eyes that are a vivid, electric blue.  “You were the first thing that was real to me, you know.  Nobody or not.”

Yeah… I _do_ know.

“You’re real to me, too,” I reply.  “Nobody or not, friends are friends.”

She laughs.  “You’re sweet, Roxas.”

I look at her in confusion.  “You’ve never tasted me.  Right?”  That would be weird.  I don’t think Nobodies would taste sweet, anyway.  Probably mostly bitter.  Except maybe Demyx with all the candy he eats…

“Huh-? Oh,” she laughs, “it’s a figure of speech.”  She looks a little happy to know something I don’t.

“Oh.”  Axel says that ‘figure of speech’ thing sometimes.  I still don’t know exactly what it means, but I don’t want to look dumb again.  “Well, you’re sweet too.  And salty.”  That must be a nice thing to call someone, since ice cream’s sweet and salty, and what’s better than ice cream?

She laughs again, and I almost fall off the ledge when she hugs me.  “You’re the best, Roxas.”

Okay, I can think of one thing.


	4. Seam

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At least Roxas has someone to keep him from going out looking like a hobo.

“Roxas, _please_ tell me you’re not going out in that.”  Thank goodness I stopped my brother before he could leave our dorm room.

“What’s wrong with it?”  He tugged one of the drawstrings on his favorite hoodie.  Said article of clothing had been his favorite for over ten years, and it looked its age.  There’s a reason I hid it under my bed, but I must have forgotten to shove it back under there after I cleaned my room last night.  “’S not like I’m going on a date or anything.”

I wanted to laugh at my adorkable little brother.  Well, he was only younger than me by thirteen minutes since we’re twins, but he acts like he’s thirteen years younger.  “Did you even look in a mirror this morning?”

“Yeah…”  He ran a hand through his messy spikes of hair that he somehow gets away with never brushing.  My good hygiene still has yet to rub off on him.  “So what’s the problem?”

“It’s faded so bad it looks pink instead of red, there’s an ice cream stain on the back of it, the lettering’s peeling off so it says ‘Twil  t To n’ instead of ‘Twilight Town,’ and the seam is ripped on your right sleeve.”  I crossed my arms.

“…You can sew that back on, right?”

I tried to cover my laugh with a sigh.  “Roxas, you really need to trash that thing.  It’s disgusting.”

“But…  Axel gave it to me when he went to college…”  Roxas buried his hands in the sagging pocket of the ugly sweatshirt.

That was right, though, I’d forgotten about that.  And now our brother Axel was far away with his job and here we were in the same college he went to, but still without him…  Okay, maybe I could see why he wanted to keep that stretched-out, too-short old thing.

When I hugged Roxas, I could smell how gross it was.  “You still can’t go out in it.  Someone will think you’re homeless.”

“But…”  He sighed.  “I still don’t want you to throw it away.”

I smiled and ruffled his hair.  “Hey, you can still wear it around the dorm.  As soon as I fix that seam.”


	5. Sandwich

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roxas and Xion's cooking skills leave much to be desired.

“I’ve got like a hundred Blizzard panels I never use,” Roxas said, handing them over to Xion.

“Thanks, I’ll get Gloomex to synthesize some Blizzagas from them.  Do you need any potions?”

“No, I’ve got plenty of those, but I can’t get this Lift Gear to fit in my grid…”

Their panel-arranging session was interrupted by a black-and-red figure tumbling out of a dark corridor and onto the Grey Area floor.

“Axel!”  The two young Nobodies jumped up at once.

“Urk…”

“Axel, what happened?!”  Xion asked.

“Told Saï… gimme a… sick day…”

They lifted him onto a couch as carefully as they could, which wasn’t too difficult thanks to his thin frame, which seemed even thinner today.  His black coat hung limply from his shoulders, and his facial tattoos stood out darkly against his too pale skin, like cold drops of ink.  Roxas gave him a spare potion panel, but even that didn’t seem to help.

“Do you have an elixir?”  Xion asked him, but he shook his head.  “Me neither… what can we do?”

“Food,” Axel moaned.  “And water…”

“On it!”  Roxas and Xion dashed for the kitchen, not wanting to waste any time.

“Are you scared, Roxas?”  Xion asked quietly when they reached the kitchen.

“I dunno.  Are we allowed to be scared?”  Roxas frowned.  “What should we feed him?  Ice cream?”

Xion shook her head.  “He felt strangely cold already… maybe some soup?”

“Good idea.  I’ll work on that; you go give Axel some water.”

She nodded and filled a glass before leaving Roxas in the kitchen alone.  It was only then that he realized he had no idea how to make soup.

“How hard can it be?”  He dug a big pot out of one of the cabinets.  “You just… mix a bunch of stuff together.  Yeah.”

He lit a burner on the stove with some Fire magic (he remembered when Axel taught him that) and set the pot on top.  “It needs some sort of liquid in it…”

Water didn’t taste like anything, and the only other drink in the refrigerator was Demyx’s chocolate milk, so Roxas poured the brown liquid into the pot.

“Ow!”  He yelped when a few hot drops spattered back out, hitting his face.  “Next time put the milk in _before_ it gets hot.  And pour it in slowly.”

Next he opened the pantry to find it sadly bare, except for a few boxes of breakfast cereal.  Oh, and a couple of old potatoes.

“Well, cereal goes well with milk… and potatoes are… well, I dunno about potatoes…”  He dumped both the vegetables and the three different kinds of cereal (Froot Loops, Lucky Charms, and Cocoa Puffs) into the bubbling chocolate milk.  He was just getting ready to see what they had in the refrigerator when Xion returned.

“Sorry I took so long, Axel had a little trouble with his water… Apparently he ran into some of those Wonderland Heartless that flip-foot you in addition to his sickness…”  Xion’s coat was dripping from the sleeves.

“Did he end up drinking any?”  It looked like it all ended up on her.

Xion sighed.  “No, I came back to refill the glass.”  She headed for the sink.

“Oh.  Well I’m almost done with the soup… I think.”

“You think?”  Xion’s nose wrinkled.  “Wait – Is that-?”

“Uh… yeah… grocery day’s tomorrow, so there wasn’t a lot to work with…”  Roxas’s shoulders slumped.  “I don’t think he’ll like it…”

Xion gave her friend a supportive smile.  “It’s not done yet.  It might only smell strange while it’s cooking.”

“Yeah… maybe.”

“I’m sure he’ll like it.  You’re doing great, Roxas.”

As Xion left to try again at giving Axel water, Roxas smiled and opened the refrigerator.  The sight was disappointing.

“Leftover lasagna?  That’s it?  …Well, it tasted pretty good last night, it might taste good again…”  He took a spoon from the silverware drawer and glopped out spoonfulls of the leftovers.

As he stirred the strange-scented soup, he thought about Axel’s condition.  He’d never seen the flame-wielder look so awful…

“He’s not fading, is he?”  Roxas worriedly asked Xion when she returned.  The grim look on her face told him she’d already thought of this.

“I-I don’t know…  Axel’s strong… but I don’t know what he meant when he said he needed a ‘sick day.’ What does ‘sick’ mean?”

“I don’t know…”  Roxas shut his eyes tightly.  They couldn’t ask Axel, because he was too weak to form complete sentences, but they didn’t have time to find anyone else… _Why do I have to be so stupid?  If I knew stuff I’d be able to help him…_ “I hope this soup makes him feel better.”

“I guess that’s all we can do.”  Xion quickly filled a bowl with the sill-not-quite-right soup.  “Let’s hurry.”

Roxas opened a corridor (why hadn’t they done that the first time?), and they rushed to Axel’s side.

“Axel?”

“Axel!”

He was so _still,_ like all the fire had gone out of him.  Was this what fading was like?  You go still, and then you disappear?

“Xion, feed him!  Quick!”

She shook out of her shock and dipped the spoon into the soup, removing it when it was full of chocolate milk and lasagna.

“I hope this works…”

Roxas had to pull Axel’s jaw open so Xion could feed him, which was much easier said than done.  Unconscious people weren’t good at eating.  Roxas even had to awkwardly tip his friend’s head back to make him swallow, which had mixed results…

“GAK-uckrk- _huuuuurrrrk…”_ The chunky bite of soup hurled gracelessly from Axel’s mouth onto the floor.

“Yay, he’s okay!”  Roxas cheered.

“Um, actually, I think he was choking…”

Axel sat up weakly, his arms shaking.  “What… exactly… were you trying to feed me?”

“I made soup.  It made you better,” Roxas said proudly, happy that Axel didn’t seem to be fading anymore.  The redhead looked down at the disgusting lump he had ejected onto the ground.

“Well…  maybe next time you should just try a sandwich.”


	6. Glitter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First-grader Roxas tries to make it through his first day in a class full of girls.

There were so many _girls_ in his class.  The only other boys besides himself were Seifer and his jerk friends that liked to steal his chocolate milk last year.  How was Roxas going to make it through one day of first grade, much less a whole year?

“I don’t wanna go to school,” he said, grabbing his dad’s belt loop before he could leave.

The tall man sighed, crouching down to his son’s level.  “We went through this last year, Rox.  You have to go to school ‘cause I’m too dumb to homeschool you.”

“No you’re not.  You’re the smartest dad in all the worlds,” Roxas said seriously.  His dad chuckled and ran a hand through his explosion of red hair.

“I’m flattered, but you still have to go to school.”

“But… I’m sick.”  Roxas fake-coughed, holding his stomach pitifully and giving his dad watery blue puppy eyes.

“No,” the redhead closed his own green eyes tightly.  “That won’t work this time, Rox.  You were fine enough to eat chocolate chip pancakes this morning, and you’re fine enough to go to school.”

“But there are too many _girls…_ and Seifer…” he mumbled, casting a nervous glance to where his rival was trying and failing to sneak crayons into Fuu’s hair.

“Hey, if that punk tries to mess with you, I’ll knock him into last week,” his dad promised with a grin, whispering so Roxas’s teacher, who was talking with another child’s parent, wouldn’t overhear.  “And girls aren’t so bad.  I’m sure you can make friends with one of them easy with those big blue eyes of yours.”

Roxas didn’t understand what his eyes had to do with anything, but he still didn’t like girls.  “They’ll wanna dress me up or put stuff on my face just like Naminé does.”

His dad couldn’t help chuckling at that.  “Not all girls are like your cousin.  Go on, at least try talking to one.”

“No way.”  Roxas crossed his arms.

“Fine, be a Mister Grumpypants.  But Grumpypantses don’t get ice cream after school.”

“No!”

“Then go find a seat before you get stuck next to Seifer.  I’ve gotta leave or I’ll be late for work, and then I’ll get chewed out for so long _neither_ or us get ice cream.”  He smiled and ruffled his son’s blond hair.  “Love you, Rox.”

“…Love you too, Dad,” Roxas finally replied after de-smushing his hair.

Then his dad, the best person in the worlds, left him alone in a room full of girls and jerks.  He had no other choice but to sulk to the open seat farthest away from Seifer, which happened to be next to a black-haired girl trotting a toy pony across the table.  Ugh.  He was going to catch cooties, and then he really _would_ be sick.  Maybe she would just ignore him…

“Hi!”  She greeted him in a chirpy voice, turning the pony to face him.  “You sat by me.  You must be nice.”

In response to that Roxas scooted his chair away, which only made her lean closer.

“Are you okay?”  She asked, sounding like she actually cared for some reason.

“No,” he grumbled back.

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t wanna go to school.”

“Oh.”  She went back to playing with her pony, but she still talked to him.  “I didn’t really want to go to school, either.”

“Why?”  Roxas asked.  It wasn’t like she had to worry about Seifer or girls.

“We just moved here, so I don’t know anyone except Pinkie Pie.”  She held up her bright pink toy pony.  “And now I know you too.  What’s your name?”

“…Roxas.”

“Hi, Roxas.  I’m Xion Elaine Knight,” she said her full name proudly.  “I brought Pinkie Pie to help me make friends, because she’s friends with everypony in Ponyville.”

“I’m not your friend,” Roxas said grumpily.  He could practically feel the cooties crawling on his skin.  The pony probably had them, too.

Xion blinked.  “Why not?”

“Because you’re a girl,” Roxas replied simply, and Xion’s eyebrows furrowed. 

“That’s dumb.  I’m friends with boys.”

“Really?”  Roxas didn’t believe it.  Why would any boy be friends with such a girly-girl?

“Yep.  Sora and Riku are my friends, but I’m far away from them now.”  She frowned and hugged her pony.

“…Oh.  I don’t have any friends here either.”  But unlike her, he didn’t have any friends anywhere, except his dad.

“…Does that mean you want to be friends?”  Xion asked.

Roxas frowned.  Was having a friend who was a girl better than having no friends?  “I guess.”

Xion smiled.  She was actually kind of pretty when she did that.  “Yay!  Do you want to be Pinkie Pie’s friend, too?”

…Well, as long as none of the boys heard…  “Fine.”

Xion smiled even brighter.  “I knew you just needed some friends.  Do you feel better now?”

“…Kind of,” he admitted.  Xion was sort of weird, but she wasn’t mean.

“I know what’ll make you feel even better!”  She dug in her backpack and pulled out a sparkly golden pegasus.  “Her name’s Sunshine Glitter.  You can play with her.”

Roxas stared at the glitter-covered toy pegasus in front of him.  It looked like a pony, but it had wings.  Wings were cool.  Gold was cool, too.  But it had big girly eyes, and so much _glitter._ It was flaking off all over the table.  He poked it, and the glitter rubbed off on his finger.

A brilliant idea flashed through his head of him rubbing the glitter-covered pegasus all over Seifer’s hair.  He grinned mischievously.

“What are we going to play?”

Xion grinned back, happy he asked.  “Journey to Kingdom Hearts.  Sora and Riku made it up.  We used to play it with ourselves instead of ponies, but we can’t run around in here like we did on the islands,” she explained.  “So we can play with Pinkie Pie and Sunshine Glitter.  They go all over the universe fighting bad guys and trying to find Kingdom Hearts.”

Ponies fighting bad guys?  Okay, that was kind of cool.  Dragons would’ve been cooler, but still, maybe Xion wasn’t as girly as he’d thought.

“Why do we want to find Kingdom Hearts?”  Roxas asked.

“Because it’s filled with love and happiness, so no one would ever be mean ever again.”

So maybe she was as girly as he’d thought.  Oh well, at least he had someone to play with and a pony to rub in Seifer’s hair later.

“Okay.  Let’s go fight bad guys.”

They didn’t have long to play before their teacher started class, but they agreed to continue their game at recess.  Roxas was surprised at how sad he was to put Sunshine Glitter back in Xion’s backpack.

Maybe his dad would let her come eat ice cream with them.


	7. Makeup

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dusks like to play pranks.

Xion gasped upon entering Roxas’s room.

“No!  Shoo!  Go away!”  Flailing her arms like she was trying to scatter a flock of birds, she chased off the Dusks that were hovering around Roxas’s bed.  They disappeared with disappointed hisses.  “Why can’t you just leave him alone…?”

She had been prepared for this, though.  She stood at her unconscious friend’s bedside and pulled a damp cloth out of her pocket.  “At least you won’t remember them doing this to you…”

Humming a soft melody, she carefully wiped away the bright makeup the Dusks had applied to her friend’s face.  Slowly Roxas’s original features appeared from under the mask of purple, blue, and red doodles of hearts and Nobody emblems.

“Much better.”  Xion smiled when all the makeup had been transferred from Roxas’s face to the cloth.  “I brought another present for you.”

_“Is it another seashell?”_ She imagined he would ask, if he could.

“Actually, it’s something different today.”  Her pocket was deep, and it took a while to find what she was looking for, but eventually she dug out an orange-tinted glass shard rimmed in gold metal.  The shape resembled a thassala shell, Xion’s favorite.

“I found this washed up on the beach today,” she said, placing the small treasure on Roxas’s pillow, adding it to the collection of colorful seashells.  “It looks kind of like a shell, but it isn’t.  I don’t actually know what it is,” she admitted.  It had caught her attention by catching the last rays of sunset, setting it ablaze with red, orange, and gold light.

“I don’t know why, but it feels special somehow.  Maybe you can help me figure out why when you wake up.”

He didn’t reply, of course.  Part of her had expected him to in spite of his comatose state, but her hope faded as the silence stretched on.  She sighed.

“I just hope you wake up soon…”


	8. Dawn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Axel, Roxas, and Xion spend their first night at Saix's house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place in the “More than Bread” universe.

Saïx’s house was _huge._ At least twenty of Xion, Roxas, and Axel’s old hideouts could’ve fit in there, and his room on its own was bigger than their most recent place behind the Falls.

“You have a _bed?!”_ Roxas exclaimed when they went into Saïx’s room for the first time.  Xion stared at the soft, blue piece of furniture in awe.

“Woah…”  Stepping forward, she felt the silky fabric between her fingers.  Roxas went ahead and bellyflopped straight onto it.

Saïx sighed by didn’t say anything.  He’d been really quiet tonight.  Was it because all of this was such a shock to him?  Xion couldn’t imagine what it felt like to fight Heartless for the first time after living a normal life.  It was all she was created to do.

Axel chuckled when Roxas started making bed-angels.  “Our lives are so screwed up…”

“Do we get beds?”  Roxas asked Saïx.

“My parents will arrange something tomorrow,” he replied quietly.

“Can we at least sleep on the carpet?”  Xion asked, kneeling down and pressing her face against it.  So soft… Did all regular people have such soft houses, or was Saïx just special?

“…It would be impolite to force children to sleep on the floor,” Saïx mumbled.  “You and Roxas may use my bed.  Axel and I will rest on the floor.”

Axel shrugged.  “Beats a wet cave by a long run.”

“We get a bed?  Now?”  She grinned, hopping onto it with Roxas, who was already jumping up and down and cheering.

“We get a bed~! We get a bed~!  Saïx is the awesomest~!”

“And what am I, Heartless liver?”  Axel took offense.

“Do heartless even have livers?”  Saïx mused.

“Saïx is almost as awesome as Axel~!”  Roxas corrected.

“That’s better.”

Xion giggled and joined hands with Roxas, and they jumped in circles on Saïx’s bed while singing the “Axel and Saïx are the Best Big Brothers Ever” song they composed on the spot.

“I’m flattered and all, but your Best Big Brothers Ever wanna go to sleep.”  Axel stretched, rubbing the spot where Mrs. Knight had bandaged his worst wound.

“I will find some spare blankets for us,” Saïx announced.  “Do not destroy anything while I am gone.”

He left the trio alone in spite of his better judgment.  The noise and general chaos of company were becoming too straining for his current level of consciousness.  Perhaps he shouldn’t have assured his parents that he would take care of their guests’ sleeping arrangements, but he had put enough stress on them tonight already.

“Oi, you guys scared him off,” Axel said to Roxas and Xion, who were using Saïx’s bed as a trampoline.  “I know you’re excited but they won’t let us stay if we wreck the place.”

“We’re not wrecking anything,” Roxas insisted, even though Saïx’s bedsheets had already begun to slide off in a messy cascade of blue and white fabric.

Axel raised his eyebrow as if to say, _“Oh, really?”_

“We’ll be good,” Xion quickly promised, not wanting to lose her new blessings.  Mr. and Mrs. Knight may have accepted them without many objections, but she still couldn’t imagine staying here for long.  They never stayed anywhere for long.

But she wanted to.  Now that she was given the chance, she wanted to so, so badly.

Axel smiled at his brother and sister.  “C’mon, let’s get you two tucked in.”

Roxas tried to protest that he wasn’t tired, but a yawn cut him off.  Xion, on the other hand, lied down immediately, like a kitten awaiting a belly rub.

“You don’t know how  cute you kids are…” Axel mumbled under his breath, lifting up the covers and tucking them around his siblings’ necks and sides.  “Sleep tight…”

“…And don’t let the,” Xion yawned, “Heartless bite.”

Axel smiled and kissed his sister on the cheek.  His brother too, once he saw that the blond boy had already fallen asleep and couldn’t protest.  “You won’t have to take the dawn sentry shift… sleep as long as you want,” he whispered to him.  “I guess we don’t need any sentry shifts here…  No risking you kids’ lives every night.” As long as they didn’t get kicked out, that was.  But for once, Axel allowed himself to be hopeful.  “I never thought that weird blue-haired kid would’ve done so much for us…”

“The ‘weird blue-haired kid’ is standing right behind you,” Saïx deadpanned, entering with his arms full of neatly folded blankets.

Axel grinned.  “Then you heard the rest of what I said, too.”

“…I did not do anything miraculous,” he said wearily as he spread the blankets on the floor.

“Saï, you can’t even _imagine_ how miraculous this is for them,” Axel insisted.  “I mean, it’s going to be hard for me.  I haven’t dealt with grown-ups in years.  But Xion’s always wanted a mom, and both of them deserve to be able to sleep until dawn without worrying about being attacked by Heartless.  You’ve given them that.”

“I did no such thing.  My parents did.”  He continued to smooth the blankets without making eye contact.

Axel chuckled through a sigh.  “Whatever you say, Saï.  We’re still grateful.”

“You can express that gratitude by going to sleep.”

“Heh, goodnight, bro.”

“I did not give you permission to use that title.”

“You didn’t give me permission to call you Saï, either.”

“…”

“…Saï?”

“…”

“…You asleep already?”

“I would like to be…”

“ ‘Night, Saïx.”

“Goodnight, Axel.”


	9. Parade

Twilight Town’s perfect sunset glitters on the street with no clouds to hide it.  The pinks and oranges and fiery reds light up my eyes and Roxas’s too, and we’re practically skipping as we hunt down Heartless.  Today is the best day in the worlds.

“Hey, I had that one!”  He tries to look angry, but his eyes are laughing as the Shadow dissolves at the strike of my keyblade.

“Then how did I get it?”  I grin teasingly back.

It’s our first mission together since I got my keyblade back, and we parade through the town with our identical weapons waving through the air.  I’ve never felt so free before, so whole.  Even though I know I’m not, I can pretend for a day.

Roxas gets the final blow on the last Heartless, one of those annoying Poison Plants that always make me Blinded, only this time we beat it before it can.

“Mission accomplished,” we say in unison, sharing a grin.

“RTC?”  I ask, and he laughs.

“No way.  Race you to the clocktower!”

“Hey, you got a head start!”  I yell, chasing after him and laughing until my insides scream their exhaustion.

We’re so close now, me and Roxas, more than we ever were before I lost my keyblade.  I trusted him and Axel, and they came through for me.  They made me whole.

Maybe that’s what friends are – pieces that fill in each other’s’ gaps until we’re all as whole and unbroken as a cloudless sunset.


	10. Books

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Santa sounds much less when Xion thinks about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place in the same universe as "Colors."

Their tiny Christmas tree glowed faintly with a short strand of colored light, illuminating the six crudely-wrapped presents beneath said Christmas tree.  Roxas and Xion stared at the presents from their hiding spot behind the couch, lights reflecting in their eyes.

“How could Seifer say he’s not real?” Roxas muttered to his sister.

“He’s a liar,” Xion replied matter-of-factly.

“I know.  So will everyone else when we prove him wrong.”  Her brother grinned smugly.

“But Santa’s not gonna come if we’re out here,” she insisted.  “Daddy said so.”

Roxas shifted uncomfortably, glancing over both shoulders to make sure Axel hadn’t heard them.  “Santa will still come if he doesn’t _know_ we’re here.”

“But he sees you when you’re sleeping.  _He knows when you’re awake,”_ Xion said seriously.  “Even Mr. Saïx knows that.  That’s why he always keeps a baseball bat by his bed.”

“I think that’s ‘cause he’s on the Naughty List.  Santa’s not scary.”

Xion didn’t reply.

“Wait, _you’re_ not scared of Santa Claus too, are you?”

“I’m not _scared._ I just… um… don’t want him to see us and take us back to the North Pole and make us his elves so we have to build toys for other kids forever and never get to see Daddy again,” Xion whispered in one breath.  Roxas stared like she was already an elf.

“Where’d you come up with _that?”_

“Well where else would Santa get a bunch of elves?”  Xion reasoned.  “I think they’re kids that saw him, and he couldn’t let his secret get out, so he took them with him.”

“But he’s not a secret,” Roxas argued.  “Everyone knows he’s real.  Except jerks like Seifer.”

“Still…”  Xion peeked out from behind the couch, but nothing had changed.  “We should just let him leave presents and see them in the morning.”

“That’s no fun,” Roxas pouted.

“That’s what we’re _supposed_ to do.”

Her brother sighed.  “ _You_ go to bed then.”

“No!”  She yell-whispered.  “I’m staying with you.”

Roxas smiled.  “Good, ‘cause this is gonna be the best Christmas _ever._ Santa’s gonna get me the new Samurai Nobody action figure.”

“Ooh, I hope I get the pony books I asked for.”  Xion smiled wistfully.

“Of course you will.  You’ve been good.”

“Xion?”

“Yeah?”

“Santa better get you everything you want, ‘cause you’re the best sister ever.”

Xion giggled.  “You’re the best brother ever, Roxas.”

The next morning, Axel found them cuddling together behind the couch, and two extra presents tucked under the tree.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lol barely made this reference the prompt. XD
> 
> Credit to Saïx’s Santaphobia goes to R. girl, as always. :P


	11. Screen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's like there's a screen between them. Roxas can't understand.

Why do I keep wondering if they’re coming?  They’re probably not coming.  They never come anymore.  Still, I keep buying three ice creams, just in case.  But I can only eat one.  The others keep melting…

“Hello.”

I can barely hear her, but Xion’s quiet voice makes me jump.  I almost drop my half-eaten ice cream.

“Hello yourself.”  I smile and turn around to hand her her ice cream, but she doesn’t smile back.

“No thank you,” she murmurs.  What’s wrong with her?  And her hood’s up…

“Are you okay?”

“Yes,” she says quietly, but her head shakes back and forth.  Which one does she mean?

“Did something happen?  Was it Saïx again?”

“No.” She sighs.

“Then what?”

I can’t stand it, that sensation that the air’s holding its breath, that something bad is about to happen and I don’t know what.  Or maybe it’s already happened.

“Nothing.”  Her head shakes again, her hood falls more in her face.

“…Okay.”  It still doesn’t feel right, but I don’t know what else to say.  It’s like there’s a screen between us.  Why did she even come, if she doesn’t want ice cream and doesn’t want to talk to me?  Maybe she was hoping for Axel instead.  Come to think of it, it feels like there’s a screen between me and him too…

She’s silent for a long time, and I am too.  We used to talk so much.  I don’t even remember what we talked about, but I hate this silence.

“…Roxas,” she finally starts, and I almost jump again.

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry,” she whispers.  Sorry?

“For what?”  I pocket my empty, WINNER-less ice cream stick.

“For… existing.”  Her voice shakes.  Huh?

“Xion, you’re not making any sense.”  I reach out to her, but she pulls away.  “Why would you be sorry for existing?”

She sighs.  “You wouldn’t understand, would you?”  She stands up, and for a second I think I see her eyes, and I miss them.  “You’re lucky, Roxas.  At least you’re a real Nobody.”

“What do you mean, ‘real Nobody’?”  I try to ask, but she’s already leaving.  “Xion!”

A dark corridor closes on her, and I’m left with two dripping sea-salt ice creams.

What did I do wrong?


	12. Hair

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Drawing wouldn't be so hard, if it wasn't for her two best friends' hair.

“Gah, I just can’t get it _right…”_

Xion furiously scrubbed at her diary with her eraser, trying to destroy yet another horribly scribbled mass of spikes that was supposed to be her best friend’s hair.  The paper had withstood it the first ten or so times, but by now it was worn thin and just as frustrated with Xion’s drawing efforts as she was.  And apparently it wasn’t taking any more of it – it tore as Xion’s eraser disintegrated into rubbery pink shavings.

“Great,” she huffed, letting her diary fall from her bed onto the floor.  “All I wanted was a picture of me and my two best friends… who knew drawing could be so hard?”

She sighed and picked up her diary again, carefully extracting the mangled paper bits from its binding.  “If only they didn’t have such complicated hair…”

She could picture it clearly in her mind: Roxas’s sideswept spikes, which looked like they were styled on purpose but were really just his natural bedhead, and Axel’s red ones, which were as spikey as Xaldin’s lances.  But for some reason her hand just wouldn’t create what her mind told it to.  Maybe it shouldn’t be that big of a deal… After all, she saw them all the time.  Why did she need another picture in her less-than-perfect style?  But the thought still nagged at her that someday, and maybe not a very far away someday, she’d long for even a glimpse, even a poorly-drawn picture of her two best friends.

“I want to remember things like they are now…” She whispered to herself, running her gloved hand over a blank page.  “Because… they won’t always stay like this, will they…?”

Like her keyblade, she feared they were only temporary… but her keyblade had come back.  Because of them.

Maybe none of it made sense, why she knew, deep, deep down, that she needed to save a piece of them.  But she did.  It was an itching urge that she couldn’t explain or control.

So she found a new pencil, one with a whole eraser, and again tackled the challenge of depicting her best friends’ hair.


	13. Sparkly

Axel taught me about friendship.  It means eating ice cream, and laughing about dumb stuff, and helping each other.  I like all of that, but I think I was missing something before – something I’m starting to feel now.  Is ‘feel’ the right word?  I wouldn’t know.

Anyway, whenever I’m with Axel and Xion, missions or eating ice cream or playing video games or whatever, something seems different.  It’s a good different.  I don’t know how to explain it.  It’s something… well… something _sparkly._ Does that make sense?  Like I ate something bright and it’s shining down in my stomach.  I’d tell Axel and ask him about it, but he’d probably say it’s just because my element is light.  But then why would I only feel it now, since we’ve started doing more friend stuff?

I think Axel and Xion feel it too.  It’s in their eyes – they’re more sparkly than normal, like the Twilight Town sunset we always stare at got itself stuck inside of them.  I wonder if my eyes look like that when I’m around them too.  It’s pretty.  I told Xion her eyes are pretty and she said thank you, but when I told Axel his eyes are pretty he said… “Rox, please, just stop.  Right now.  Before the yaoi fangirls hear you.  We can’t take another invasion like that.”  I wonder what he was talking about.

Even if he doesn’t want me to talk about it, his eyes are sparkly.  Xion’s are too, and I guess mine probably are.  It wasn’t there before.  I don’t know why for sure, but it makes me smile. I hope this sparkly sensation stays.


	14. Dance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's a good thing their friendship wasn't based on Roxas's dancing skills... or lack of.

“Sorry, Xion… again…” Roxas groaned, stepping on his best friend’s high-heeled feet for the… how many times had it been now?

“It’s okay,” she replied while trying to casually rub her injured toes on the back of her other leg, kicking the tail of her flowing purple dress and stumbling slightly.  “Dancing isn’t easy.”

“I thought it would be a _little_ easier…”  Roxas mumbled in embarrassment.  “Are you sure you wouldn’t have rather asked, I don’t know, Riku?  He can probably dance.”

Xion shifted her hand in his; they were already getting sweaty.  Ugh, what girl wanted to hold a guy’s sweaty hand?  He wished his suit wasn’t so hot.  His lavender tie – Axel said the guy’s tie was supposed to match the color of the girl’s dress, but the shade was off – kept feeling like it was choking him.

“You’re my best friend, Roxas.  If I’m not going to have a boyfriend, I might as well have you.”  She grinned.

“Hey!”  He protested, flicking her arm with the hand that had been on her waist.  “I’m not just some placeholder until you get a boyfriend, right?”

“Rox, I was just teasing.  Sorry.”  She giggled, straightening his tie and guiding him away from other couple that was drifting dangerously close with their bear-hug dancing.  It looked incredibly uncomfortable.  How were they not stepping on each other’s feet while he couldn’t stop stepping on Xion’s?  “I don’t need a boyfriend, anyway.  Not as long as I have a best friend like you.”

Roxas grinned.  “Good, ‘cause I don’t either.”

“I sure hope you don’t need a boyfriend,” Xion replied in mock seriousness.

“You know that’s not what I meant-!”

“Sorry, I should really stop teasing,” she smiled sheepishly.  “Do you want to go back to dancing?”

He realized they’d stopped in the middle of the dance floor, not even holding hands any more, surrounded by actual couples who either knew how to dance and showed it, or who didn’t care and just wanted to stand around and make out.  Roxas was glad Xion wasn’t like that.

“Not really,” Roxas answered.  He was only here so he and Xion could both say they went to prom at least once in their lives.  And he honestly didn’t even care about that; it was mostly because Xion wanted to, and Axel wanted to pass down Fancy Day Life Lessons.  If it was up to Roxas, they’d be at one of their houses playing video games, in pajamas or at least something that wasn’t an oven-suit.

Xion sighed in relief.  “Good, I don’t think my feet could take any more of that.”

Roxas didn’t blame her.  “Wanna take some of those fancy little cakes before we leave?”

“It’s things like this that remind me why you’re my best friend.”  She giggled.  “Even if you can’t dance to save your life.”

Roxas grinned back.  “I’ll take being your best friend over being able to dance any day.”


	15. Share

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sharing is caring, right?

It was impossible.  It had never happened; it _couldn’t_ happen.  Roxas felt his nonexistent heart stop.

“You’re _out of sea-salt?!”_ He exclaimed in disbelief.  Was this a prank? This wasn’t another day like April Fools, was it?  But Xigbar and Demyx hadn’t played any jokes on him today, so that idea was a stretch.

“Not quite, dear.  There’s still one left,” the vendor said consolingly.

“But there’s three of us!”  Well, two right now; he’d met up with Xion on his way to buy their ice cream.

“It’s okay, Roxas.  I don’t have to have any,” she said.

“I’m not going to eat ice cream right in front of you if you can’t have any.  That’s mean.  Besides, there’s still Axel.”

“I’m sorry,” the vendor lady said.  “The other schoolchildren came right after class ended and bought all but my last bar.  Today was your last day, wasn’t it?”

Roxas and Xion exchanged a confused glance.  “Uhh… sure.”

Whatever the reason for the ice cream shortage, though, they still had to deal with it.  “What should we do?”  Roxas asked Xion.

“Umm… do you think we could share it?”  She asked uncertainly.  “I know one bar isn’t a whole lot for three people…”

“It’s better than nothing.”  Roxas grinned.  “That’s a good idea.”

The lady chuckled slightly, taking Roxas’s munny in exchange for the single ice cream bar.  “I’ll be sure to have more tomorrow, dears.  Take care now.”

“Thank you,” Xion called behind them as they left.  Once they were out of sight, she opened a dark corridor to the top of the clocktower.

Roxas peeled off the wrapper and took a bite before passing it to Xion.

“I think it tastes better today,” Xion said.  “Does it taste better to you?”

Roxas shrugged, taking another bite when she passed it to him.  “It tastes the same to me.”

“Huh.  Maybe I just think it does since it’s the only one left.  Does that make any sense?”  She asked.

“Not really.”

“Oh well.  Oh, don’t forget to save some for Axel.”

“Yeah,” Roxas grinned, “how mad do you think he’d be if we ate it all without him?”

“I don’t know,” Xion replied thoughtfully.  “Have you ever seen Axel mad before?”

“Huh… I don’t think so.  Maybe when Saïx gave him that Unidentified Giant Heartless mission a few days ago…”

Xion took another bite of ice cream, a smaller one this time.  “Do you think we saved enough for him?”

“Saved enough what?”  Their redheaded fried asked, appearing from around the corner.

“Ice cream,” Roxas pointed to their half-eaten bar.  “There was only one left, so we shared.”

“The rest is for you!”  Xion added, excitedly holding out the dripping treat.

Axel stared, then laughed and shook his head.  “Man, I’ve got so many Life Lessons to teach you… especially one about germs.”

“What are germs?”

“Germs are something you _don’t_ want to share.  So thanks, but I’ll skip the ice cream today.”


	16. Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rummy wasn't supposed to be a team game.

“Why thank you, Roxas,” Luxord said politely as he picked up the ace of spades the younger Organization member had discarded.  Roxas’s brow furrowed as the man laid it down along with two more aces.

“How many points is that?”

Xion accidentally flashed the other two Rummy players her hand as she counted the points.  “Aces are fifteen, right?  So fifteen plus fifteen plus fifteen is—”

“Forty-five,” Luxord answered when she ran out of fingers to count on.  Neither she nor Roxas bothered to try to tally the rest of his points, which were mainly composed of runs of face cards.

Roxas stared down at his meager fifteen points – a two, three, and four of clubs.  “I stink at this.”

“I would not bet on that before the hand is played,” Luxord said.  He might have been trying to be consoling, but it was hard to tell under the layers of game-speak.  Roxas just sighed and looked back at his hand.  There were plenty of hearts there, but didn’t Luxord say the numbers had to go in order too?  Rummy was confusing.

Xion drew a card on her turn and promptly discarded it – a nine of hearts.

“Hey.  I need that one,” Roxas announced proudly as he took it and placed it on the Grey Area table along with the ten and jack of the same suit.

“Good job, Roxas!”

“Thanks for giving it to me.”  He grinned.  “Hey, do you have the one with the Q on it?”

“Let me see…”

Luxord stared at them.  “This isn’t how you play the game.”

“Why not?”  Xion asked curiously.

“The objective is to win by collecting the most points,” Luxord explained with slight exasperation, like he was re-teaching the alphabet.  “If Number XIII collects more points than you, you lose.”

“But if Roxas wins, I feel like I win, too,” she replied simply.

Luxord blinked.  It was such a foreign concept, especially in the cutthroat Organization, that it took him a moment to process it.  “It appears that you are playing a different game altogether.”

And they were.  Roxas told Xion which cards he needed, and she happily discarded whichever ones she had at the end of each turn.  Roxas would have done the same for her, but Luxord in between them prevented it.

“Do you need a diamond five?”  Xion asked.

“Nah, not really.”

“…This feels like Go Fish, only in reverse,” Luxord mused aloud.

“Ooh, Go Fish!  I wanna play!”  Demyx said as he entered the Grey Area, throwing himself on the couch next to Luxord.

“We’re not playing Go Fish, we’re playing Rummy,” Roxas told him, picking up the two of hearts Xion had discarded and playing it with the three and the last ace.

“Incorrect,” Saïx’s voice interrupted.  “None of you will be playing anything.  There are missions to be done.”

“…But I won, right?”  Roxas whispered as he discarded his last card.  Luxord sighed and mentally tallied the points – Roxas had surpassed his score by five.

“Indeed.  The two of you make a formidable team, like two halves of a whole.”  He summoned the cards back into his hand as he stroked his goatee. 

Saïx thrust a mission assignment into Roxas’s hands.  “We shall see if they can be as formidable in the mission field.”

Roxas and Xion shared a glance and a small smile.  Together in card games or in heart collection, they did make a pretty good team.


	17. Forever

Birds.  Crows’ calls, high _ka-KAWW_ s.  Wind whipping them around so their cries came from vaguely everywhere.  The train, chugging along, steady, back and forth, in and out of the station.  Coming and going, punctuated with shrill whistles, drifting up at times like the tide.  In, out.

In, out.

And then, the bells.  Those beautiful bells.  At the top of the hour, when the sun begins to drown itself in the horizon, they ring.

_DING bong ding BONG_

_DING bong ding BONG_

_BONG_

_BOng_

_bong…_

They sing to the crows, the train, the wind.  They sing of memories, of days past, of sunsets spent eating ice cream on the tower.  They sing through the tower and into the three black-coated individuals who inhabit it.  They feel the song – and they sing back.  Not in bells, nor crows, nor wind nor train.

Their song is laughter.

It whirls in the wind, through crows’ feathers, under train tracks.  It echoes in clocktower bells and flows over the streets.  The cobblestones drink it up like a reviving elixir and shine ever brighter in the dissolving sun.

It doesn’t matter why they laugh, those three black-coated strangers.  Sometimes it’s the flame-haired on wondering how in the Worlds the other two can be so perfectly clueless.  Sometimes it’s the raven-headed girl, amused at how many sea-salt ice creams the two boys can consume.  Sometimes it’s the boy with golden hair, laughing because he’s alive, and he can.

But the best song is the one they create when they laugh together.

_That_ is the song that lasts forever.


	18. Chocolate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roxas and Xion probably weren't supposed to take chocolate from strangers, even nice ones.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place in the "More than Bread" universe, while Axel, Roxas, and Xion are living on the streets.

He wasn’t supposed to be alone.  It wasn’t safe – Axel had told him over and over and over again.  Xehanort and Vexen and who knew who else could still be looking for them, and that wasn’t even counting the Heartless.

But somehow none of that entered his young mind when his nose was captured by the heavenly warm scent.

He twitched from unconsciousness to semi-consciousness, practically floating out of their newest hideout (a hole in one of the walls surrounding the decaying Gardens) and towards the source of the smell.

 _“Roxas!”_ Xion whisper-yelled, poking her head out of the hole.  “Come back!”

“Xion, _smell!”_ He replied, oblivious to her call.

“But you can’t—” She must have caught it.  “Ohhh,” she sighed.  “What _is_ that?”

“I dunno.  Let’s go find it!”

Xion followed him through the weed-infested flower beds.  _Those_ definitely weren’t the source of the smell.  Roxas wondered if the dry petals had ever smelled good before, like Axel said flowers were supposed to.

The flower bed eventually crumbled into cracked cobblestone, which wound its way past a dry fountain and towards Radiant Garden’s center.  Roxas and Xion followed it by starlight, since the streetlights in the area had lost power long ago, when the city’s leader decided there was no point in paying to light an abandoned, Heartless-infested street.  Thankfully the Heartless weren’t out now.  Roxas liked to think the warm scent repelled them.

“Roxas,” Xion whispered, tugging on his arm.  “Look.”

“What?”  Roxas asked in his regular voice, looking back and forth conspicuously.  He didn’t see anything except empty shops, one with a door creaking in the slight breeze.

“Hello,” a girl’s voice called from his left, but he still didn’t see anyone.  “Over here.”

He finally saw her when she waved her white-sleeved arm, which caught the faint starlight.  She was sitting just inside the creaky-doored shop.

“Hi,” Roxas said dumbly, not sure what else to say.

“We’re not supposed to talk to strangers,” Xion reminded him quietly.

He decided if he knew who she was, she wouldn’t be a stranger.  “Who are you?”

“My name’s Aqua,” the girl replied, stepping out of the doorway and clutching a chipped white mug.  “Who are you?”

“I’ll ask the questions,” Roxas said what he thought Axel would say.  “What’s that smell?”

Aqua came closer, and he could tell now that she was taller than him – probably older too, maybe even as old as Axel.  She held out her mug.  “Do you mean this?”

Roxas and Xion both grinned at the sweet scent, their stranger-danger instincts dissolving.  “Yeah, what is it?”

“Hot chocolate,” she replied, smiling at their faces.  “Would you like some?”

Roxas and Xion shared a glance.  Aqua could be working for Xehanort, like Axel said anyone could, but Roxas doubted anyone so pretty would work for that creep. 

“Um…”  Xion mumbled.  “Do you have more?”

“A little.”  Aqua smiled.  She was too smiley to work for Xehanort.  Smiley in a good way, not a creepy-evil-scientist-like-Vexen way.  “I’ll bring you some.”

She must be smart, too, because she knew they were eager to ingest the hot chocolate, but they were too scared to come with her.  In a few minutes, which Roxas and Xion spent chattering excitedly about the treat, Aqua returned with two more chipped mugs.

“Here you go.”

She barely finished her sentence before Roxas and Xion each took a huge gulp of their hot chocolate – and promptly spit it across the street.

“It’s _hot_!”  Roxas exclaimed, like heat was a new concept to him.  Xion was too preoccupied with cooling her tongue to talk.

Aqua raised her thin blue eyebrows.  “Well, it is _hot_ chocolate.  You should wait for it to cool.”

“Aww…”  Having the treat in front of him and not being able to drink it was almost worse than knowing he couldn’t have any.

“Where did you get this?”  Xion asked once the night air had cooler her tongue.

“It comes in little packets,” she explained, taking a sip of her own drink.  “You mix the chocolate in the packets with boiling water.  I found them in that shop.”  She nodded towards the creaky door.

“You mean we could’ve _found_ it?”  Roxas asked in disbelief.  They scoured old shops all the time, but they’d only moved to their new secret base in the wall a few days ago, and those days had been spent eradicating so many Heartless there hadn’t been time yet.

“Why didn’t we smell it before?”  Xion asked.

“It doesn’t smell strong in the packets.  You have to mix it first.”

“Oh.”

Their hot chocolate was still warm, but finally just cool enough to drink.  Roxas drained his mug in about three seconds, savoring the sweet, chocolaty aftertaste.  Xion’s lasted slightly longer, but she didn’t have the willpower to ration it for very long.

“Can I ask who you are now?”  Aqua asked once they were done.

“Hmm… I guess so,” Roxas said.  “I’m Roxas, and this is Xion.” 

 “Thanks for the hot chocolate,” Xion waved, then her eyebrows creased.  “We better go back to Axel now.”

“Who’s Axel?”

“He’s our brother… I hope he’s not awake yet.  He’ll be mad.”  And he might be mad that Roxas told Aqua his name, too…

“Is he mean?”  Aqua asked, with a prepared seriousness that made Roxas wonder if she had a habit of fighting mean people.

“No,” he said quickly.  “He’ll just be worried about us.  He gets mad when he worries.  But he’s still the best big brother ever.”

Her expression softened, relieved.  “I’ll let you go, then.  I wouldn’t want your brother to worry.”

“Bye, Aqua!”  Xion waved as they left.  “Maybe we’ll see you again sometime!”

The blue-haired girl waved back.  “Maybe you will.”

“Thanks for the hot chocolate!”  Roxas barely remembered to add.  He wasn’t used to thanking anyone outside of his family. 

“You’re welcome,” she said, still in the middle of the street.  “Goodbye.”

Thankfully, Axel was still asleep and snoring when they returned, curled up in the tiny hollow, and went to bed.  But they still couldn’t avoid the question the next morning:

“Hey, what smells like chocolate?”


	19. Twilight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Personal space is still a foreign concept to Roxas.

“Look, Roxas.  It’s okay if she just wants some Girl Time without us for a while.  Remember that personal space talk we had a while back?”

Roxas still looked upset in spite of Axel’s consolation.  “I just want to know what’s going _on._ Friends tell each other stuff, right?”

Axel ruffled his hair, staring out at the Twilight Town sunset even though he knew someday his eyes would curse him for it.  “Well… not _all_ the time.  Besides, girls are complicated,” he changed the subject.

“Maybe we wouldn’t think she’s so complicated if she told us stuff,” Roxas sulked, not caring that his ice cream was dripping on his coat.  Thankfully black leather didn’t really get stained.

Sighing, Axel asked, “Well, what do you want to do?  Barge in on her and demand to know all her personal business?”

Roxas perked up.  “That’s a great idea! Thanks, Axel!”

“No, augh, Roxas—!”  The blond had already left through a dark corridor.  “Ugh, I gotta teach that kid about sarcasm…”

XXX

“Xion?”  Roxas knocked on the girl’s door three times.  “Xion, are you in there?”

No response.  But he thought he heard faint noises from inside…  Axel had said he could barge in, right?

He threw open the door, and Xion screamed – suddenly her keyblade hit him bluntly in the chest, knocking him backwards.

“Roxas!”  She flung something off of her head – it looked kind of like earmuffs – and rushed to his side.  “I’m so sorry, you startled me—!”

“I knocked!”  He yelled before draining a potion in a single gulp.  Her keyblade disappeared off of him.

“I couldn’t hear you,” she apologized.  “I had headphones on.”

“Headphones…?”  Was that a girl thing?

“I’ll show you,” she said as she dragged him over to her bed, where the discarded earmuff-things were on top of her blankets.

“What, were your ears cold?  Are you sick?”

“Huh?”  Xion blinked.  “No, sound comes out of them.  Here.”  She slid them over his ears before he could argue, and then she pressed a button on the clipboard-sized screen they were connected to.  Instantly the screen lit up with images of pastel-colored ponies, and their speech came out of the headphones.

_“Dear Princess Celestia…”_ A purple unicorn dictated to a tiny dragon before Xion paused the device, leaving her (Roxas assumed the unicorn was a her) mid-sentence.

“I don’t want to spoil it for you, in case you want to watch it.”

“Wait, what is it?”  Roxas asked, utterly confused.  It looked kind of like the TV Axel watched sometimes, only smaller.

“It’s a… iPad, I think Demyx said.  He bribed me with it so I wouldn’t tell Saïx he was skipping work.”  Xion’s brow furrowed.  “I wasn’t going to tell Saïx anyway, but he gave it to me and said to give it back next week.”

“Sooo… What do you do with it?”  Roxas took off the headphones so he could hear her better.

“Apparently you can do lots of things, but I found a TV show Demyx had on here.  It’s called _My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.”_

Roxas stared dumbly until Xion explained the show to him, something about a Twilight Sparkle going to Ponyville to make friends.  But it didn’t make much sense – she never mentioned ice cream.  How could Twilight make friends without eating ice cream with them?

“It makes more sense if you watch it,” she told him.

“Can I watch it with you now then?”  Roxas asked, glad to finally know why she’d dropped off the face of the Worlds.  The show must be pretty good to distract her from ice cream.

“Sure!”  Xion sounded happy to have his company, so that was good too.  “But I only have one set of headphones…”

It was an hour and a half later that Axel finally found them, curled up with their faces squished inside the pair of headphones and their eyes glued to the cast of ponies on the screen.

“Axel!”  Roxas called, pushing the headphones off of his head.  “I finally learned how friendship works!  Ice cream isn’t the only way I can make friends!”

“Do you want to watch it too?”  Xion asked eagerly.

The redhead backed away slowly.  “…No thanks, it looks like you guys need your personal space.”


	20. Pink

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, this technically isn’t a drabble. But I first started writing Roxas/Xion poetry in my early fanfiction days, when I was just getting into Kingdom Hearts and getting torn apart by all the friendship feels. So anyway, I wanted to end this drabble challenge with a bit of nostalgia. C:

The sun is setting

red

I think

Through my hazy eyes

it might be

pink

…

And from this

empty heart

I lack

Everything seems to

fade to

black

…

The kindest light and

softest smile

I knew

And ocean eyes that

always shined so

blue

…

I don't know how

those eyes could fade

so soon

Like the waning glow

of Kingdom Hearts' great

moon

…

And faster still

fade memories in

my mind

How could I lose

what I'd meant

to find?

…

You say you're still

glad that you met

me

After these three-five-eight days,

how can this be

our destiny?

…

My one best friend

remaining after

all

I should have know

you'd have to take

the fall

…

But as you fall

I'll be right

here

You're not afraid

yet I am filled with

fear

…

It isn't right for

this to

end

Every ice cream

proved you are

my friend

…

All these sunsets fading

in shades of

red

All these tears

that I have

shed

…

They are my own

they are for

you

You're never gone -

and this I know is

true.


End file.
